When it comes to the health and safety of both Sarah and our unborn child, every little thing terrifies me. I do my best to be strong, but in cases like we had about two weeks ago, I couldn’t find any strength at all. I was terrified.Thursday night Sarah told me she wasn’t feeling too great. Which at this point in her pregnancy isn’t surprising. Everything hurts. She’s uncomfortable. I’m used to her telling me she isn’t feeling that great. She said her belly felt hard. This was new, and seemed strange, but I thought it was probably just tightening as it grew. I really had no idea what I was talking about. She also felt what she said felt like stronger versions of Braxton Hicks.

Friday morning comes around and we go through our usual routine. I take Sophia to daycare, Sarah goes to work, and I go to work. About two hours after we got to work, Sarah calls me to tell me that she just wasn’t feeling right and that she called the doctor. She explained the symptoms and they told her it was best for her to go to the hospital for a non-stress test. They wanted to be sure she wasn’t going into premature labor. I’m sorry, premature labor?!? It’s the first week of June and the baby isn’t due until September 5. That’s three months early! So, what do I do? Off to Google! I’ll tell you one thing you don’t ever do. Go to Google when it comes to medical issues. It will scare the life out of you!!! So, I’m playing all the possibilities out in my head. I’m freaking out.

So, Sarah goes to the hospital and I wait a little while to pick Sophia up from daycare. Once my soon-to-be brother-in-law got to my house to watch Sophia, I left and headed for the hospital. I get there and Sarah is hooked up to a few monitors, checking on her and the baby. The nurses tell her they see “activity”. So, more freaking out for us (okay, ME, Sarah stayed pretty calm throughout). They hooked her up to an IV to try to raise her fluid levels. Eventually they do a white blood cell count, take her down for an ultrasound to make sure she hasn’t dilated yet. Well, good news on both counts.

No premature labor.

If it wasn’t premature labor, what was it? Nobody really had an answer for us. Sarah could have been dehydrated. The baby could have been in an odd position that was causing the activity. Or it could be a combination of both of them, or something else entirely. There just wasn’t an easy explanation. All we knew was that the IV helped and that in the two weeks since then, there haven’t been an issues.

I will say this, though. I’ve always had a great deal of respect of those parents that have children born premature, with birth defects, etc. I have an even greater respect for them now. After feeling the fear of having a child born prematurely, my already high level of respect has reached new heights for those parents.